Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Amnesia ❯ Amnesia ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

I woke up feeling wonderful.

But also, in some indefinable way, strange.

Slowly, as i laid there on the cool bed spread, it dawned on me, that i had absolutely no i idea where i was. A hotel bedroom, by the look of it.
But with the curtains drawn. I didn't know what city, or even what planet. Then the blank of 'where am i?' Ballooned into the bigger, the total blank
of WHO AM I? It was a question without an answer. My memory was an open book with every page blank. I had no name, no known address, no memories of
friends or relatives, or schools or jobs. I had amnesia. I got out of bed, and as i did, i realized, with a glance at my naked body, that i am male,
reasonably well-put-together, with wry back. But what about my face? That's part of everyone's identity, that should be proof against amnesia. The
mirror over the dresser was in angle, so i couldn't see myself from where i stood. I decided to take a simple test, i closed my eyes and took an inventory
of how i thought i looked.

Hair? Long light.
Beard? I don't know.
Eyes? I believe they are blue.

I could hardly be more completely mistaken. For when i looked in the mirror, the stranger i saw, had fuzzy dark nearly green hair. No beard.
And his eyes were emphatically brown.
What idiot can have green hair? Apparently me.

I took a deep breath and a long look about the hotel room, starting with the dresser. A sheet of the hotel's stationery informed me, that i was a guest
of the Sunderland Hotel. There was a room key with a large green plastic tag, showing my room number - 1502. On the nightstand, next to the bed, i found
a single ragged woolong bill, i took it. To pass the time, hotel offered a television. Also, a Bible. Pen was placed near the phone. To the left of the
dresser was an strange computer on its own metal cart. Too much futuristic, i thought. I opened the bible to the only dog-eared page in the book and i
noticed that the page so marked, have been scribbled on. It was the page, on which appropriate texts were cited for those with special needs. The list of
texts commended to 'those in doubt and uncertainty' have been crossed out, and above the deleted citations of chapter and verse someone had written
'John 1'.

If i remembered John 1 rightly, it seemed oddly irrelevant to the needs of those in doubt. But never mind.

I searched to the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John. The text was what i remembered to be 'In the beginning was the Word, and the word was
with God...'. I laid the bible back. There was a knock on the door. I almost said 'Come in', before i remembered that i
didn't have any clothes on. Nowhere in the room, i could see any clothes. Maybe i was a nudist? The knocking repeated, somewhat more loudly. I was
beginning to feel just slightly desperate about the clothing situation. I opened the door and stood there in the all-together. A maid took one look at
me, smiled, and put the trolley into reverse. I could see, in the mirror over the dresser, that i was blushing red as a beefsteak. I took the red sheet,
what covered bed moments ago and wrapped it around myself. I walked into the bathroom. It had the usual amenities of a good, but not over-fancy hotel,
a small pink sink encased in formica what was pretending to be marble, a tiled shower, a toilet, a towel rack with a large towel. But no clothes. I left
all the things as they were.

TV turned itself on. There were three buttons on the set. Old model i guessed, a relic to be precise. The first was for on and off, the second was marked F for
forward, allowing me to change the channels, but the third was broken off. On channel two there was an ad for Kool-Aid, and then a rerun of Wheel of fortune resumes.
The three contestants were trying to guess the letters of someone's name. There was no T in it, no S, no N...
I pressed F, TV tuned to the hotel's own cable channel, and the screen filled with heaving breasts and writhing limbs of a closed circuit X-rated movie. I felt
just enough arousal to know that my sexual orientation is definitely heterosexual, but for a moment that all naked flesh only reminded me more vividly my own dilemma.

The phone came to life. It rang.
I turned the TV off, it could scare the other on the line.

I took the earphone in my hand.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Good morning." Said a woman's voice.

"This is the Registration desk. You are aware, are you not, that the check-out time is twelve o'clock?" The voice from telephone said.

"No." Was my answer.

"If you haven't checked out by that hour, Mr. Cameron, we will have to bill you for another night. But if you wish to extend your stay, I can adjust your
bill accordingly. Do you wish to continue your stay?" Woman in the phone did her work well.

"I certainly want to." After a moment i said.

"I assume you will want to put this on your credit card?"

"That would be ok." I didn't known my voice at all.

"I'll have a bellboy bring the readjusted VISA slip to your room momentarily. Have a good day." She greeted me in somewhat learned and tired greeting.

"Cameron."

I tested out the sound of the name she gave me. But could i be sure, that i was the Cameron, what rented this room? If my own signature as 'Cameron' jibed
with the one on the receipt the bellboy was bringing...
I took the pen in my hand... I tried several practice signatures. The promised bellboy soon appeared, and i wrapped my covers more securely about
my waist, i answered his rapping on the door. He presented me with the adjusted hotel bill.

"One moment." I said and took the slip over to the desk to examine it.

I examined the slip and found that a name, which is presumably mine, was typewritten on the top of the statement. I had a name: John Cameron III.
I signed the bill using my new-found name, and handed it back to the bellboy. Bellboy made a significant cough, he waited for a tip. But i didn't give him
one and only money i had. He left with discontented mumble, and i was left to consider what John Cameron's next move should be. Clothes were surely the first
priority. I took the key in my hand and opened door. Then i walked into long corridor made to seem still longer by a wallpaper design of continuous
horizontal stripes of chocolate brown and dusky orange. To the west, just after the door to my own room, was a door with lighted exit sing above it. On
along the corridor to the east the numbers of the rooms increased by increments of one.

Halfway down the corridor there was a branching northward and an arrow directing me to a bank of elevators. For the moment, the hallway was empty, saved for
a maid's laundry trolley, some five doors away and myself. Door with exit opened onto the landing of a wide stairwell. The concrete steps and walls were
painted battleship gray. I walked the stairs slowly to the next landing. The concrete felt cold under my bare feet. In a moment or two, i found myself before
a door marked as Sunderland health club, authorized personnel only.

I found myself on a gravel rooftop. Immediately in front of me was a drained swimming pool, surrounded by deck chairs, made of brightly colored metal tubing.
Beyond the pool was the penthouse proper, a flat-roofed, windowless, brick structure with a metal door from which the weather had almost entirely peeled away
any lettering: s de and sau a he lt lub.

I entered it. I was in a small reception area, furnished with cast-iron and vinyl armchairs, a water cooler with paper cups, a small formica desk with a stack
of application forms, and faded posters of once famous bodybuilders. A sing on the front desk promised, that someone would be 'Back in ten minutes'. The
elevators opened into the reception area from a hallway on one wall. There were two doors behind the desk. The one on the left marked 'Dolls', the one on the
right 'Guys'. I entered the guys. I was in the men's locker room. To my right were two changing areas formed by free-standing metal lockers. To my left were
some sinks and a large mirror, with doors on either side. The door on the right marked 'Sauna', the one to left 'Massage'. Directly ahead were the showers,
and beyond these, a sing pointed the way to the weight room.

As i came to the sauna a blast of superheated air, wrapped my body in what felt like a suit of flames. My heartbeat accelerated, and the narrow confines of the
steamy, pine-paneled cell bended, warped and titled. I was barely able to keep myself from falling against the iron stove and its pile of heated rocks.
I crumbled onto the bench of wooden slats, and then... But this then was like no other then. It did not follow the time that gone before. Like a fluid
under tremendous pressure, the memories suppressed by my amnesia overwhelmed me. At some cue supplied by that hot dark cubbyhole, my past supplanted my
present life. I experienced ... the Deja-vu.

I was locked in a cell. It was a bare and dark and smelt of lives gone sour. The only light was a feeble fluorescent glow that slanted in, through the louvered
grill in the iron door. I knew the door was iron, because i punched on it. My hands were sore, and my right eye was swollen shut. I ached all over.
Worse than the ache was the hunger, and worse than the hunger was the fear that i would never leave that cell alive. I began to scream. I knew it would do
no good. They could beat me again, but i couldn't help myself. I screamed the same senseless words over and over, a litany of terror.

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you."

"Fuck... you..."

At last my screams attracted the attention of my jailer. The grill of the door pushed aside, and his face appeared, leering in the aperture.

"What's the matter, Juanito?" He asked in a drawling, twanging, Texas voice. Earth?

"I need food..." His eyes shrank to pinpoints of sadistic pleasure.

"Why sure, Juanito, you'll get fed, just as soon as you ask for it so I can hear you. There are just two little words you got to say, and I'll bring you a nice big
bowl of five-alarm chili." He waited for me to say the two words.

"Fuck you..." Were only words, i could offer his slimy face.

"Sorry, Juanito." Jailer said, and slammed the grill shut.

This is not possible, it is not legal, it cant go on. Not even on a planet like Earth, can a prisoner be treated like this. I wasn't churched with any
crime. There was no trial. One minute i was driving my swordfish back, and next a police was signaling for me to pull off and stop. The
worst of it was, that no one knew i was there, and so no one thought to report me missing. Suddenly i understood the meaning of hell. There was no way out.

No way out.

No way out.

No way out...

And then, sudden as waking from a nightmare, this mind-explosion of memory was over. But was it really a memory, couldn't it have been, instead, some kind
of waking nightmare? Aside from this one, lurid glimpse of what may have been my past life, i was able to remember nothing else about myself or that prison.
If that was, what my life was like, maybe i shouldn't try to remember it. Maybe my amnesia is a blessing in disguise.

"Mr. Cameron, are you conscious, can you hear me?"

A man's face was bending down close to my own. I didn't recognize him. Gradually i realized, that i was no longer in the sauna, but in another smaller room, where
i was lying on my back on a masseur's table. The massage room, this must be.

"He opened his eyes." Another voice said.

"Yes," Said the man standing above me, "but there's this funny dazed look in his eyes. The same thing happened when he went into the sauna last night, and
I thought, it was from drinking too much. We had to carry him down to his room."

He turned his attention to me. "Hey Mr. Cameron, are you all right?"

"He's trying to say something," the other voice observed, "but the words are so slurred... do you think he's still drunk?"

The man above me bended over to sniff my breath.

"Doesn't seem to be. No, I figure its just heat prostration. Tell you what, Buddy, you mop up around the poll, and I'll give Cameron here a once-over-lightly."

"Whatever he was wearing last night must still be in his locker. After that I would appreciate it, if you would steer him back to his room."

The man who done most of the talking, began to massage my body. I found it strangely soothing. Tension from my mind and muscles disappeared.
He turned the sunlamp on and left me alone in the room. The warmth of the lamp filled me with a strange peaceful passivity. I listened to the unmistakable
crunch of steel through steel, and a moment later the masseur returned with a pair of metal cutters in one hand and a green canvas satchel in the other.

"Sorry to have to cut through your padlock, Mr. Cameron. But I remember how frustrated you got last night trying to remember the combination. I would have
cut the lock off then, but you'd passed out in the sauna first. You feeling a little better now?"

"Yes..." Was my answer.

"That's good, Mr. Cameron. You're going to be just fine. Just steer clear of the sauna in the future. And take the salt tablets. Now I'll leave this satchel
here with you, and when you've got some clothes on, Buddy will help you down to your room. Okay?"

I smiled weakly and nodded okay, the masseur left me alone with the green canvas satchel and my own privity. I zipped open the satchel and found: jeans, a t-shirt
laundered from red to rosy pink, a plastic bookbag, a pair of running shoes, well broken-in, and a small maroon address book. Thank god.
Quickly i put on the clothes, that were in the gym bag. From the fit of both the jeans and the sneakers, there could be little doubt, that they were mine. I looked
at myself in the full-length mirror of the massage room, and i saw, once again, a complete stranger.
But at least he was a stranger with clothes on, and that was some improvement. There was a knock on the door, and the masseur asked.

"Are you ready to go back to your room?"

"Yes." I answered, with voice full of strength again.

He was full of relief, when i followed Buddy out. He took my satchel, bookbag and key to the room 1502. We took the elevator down to 15, and Buddy led the
way to my room. Once i was inside the door, he handed me the satchel, bookbag and their contents and said good-bye, with a look in his eyes that conveyed his low
opinion of men who make a habit of fainting in saunas. I breathed a sigh of relief, as i closed the door behind me. Room 1502 felt almost like home.
The first thing i noticed, was the late afternoon light, streaming across the skyscrapers of the city, Mars, flashing from windows and walls of glass. It was late,
in the day, and the sun was low in the sky. On the bed was lying a white tuxedo. I took off the sneaks, the t-shirt, and the jeans. No sense in getting just half
undressed, and stood naked in my room. I was just about to put on the tuxedo, when phone rang. I went to the dresser, as i draped the tuxedo over my arm, and
answered the phone with a rather tentative.

"Hello?"

"John!" Boomed a man's gravelly voice.

"Where have you been, son? We've been down here in the lobby for the last couple of hours, calling your room every five minutes. I guess that margarita last
night was your undoing. Well, no matter, so long as you're on your feet again. Have you tried on your white bib and tucker yet?" Telephone was resonating with his
loud voice.

"Not yet, thanks to your interruption." I answered, calmly. With no idea what was going on.

"Well, get moving, my boy! Your bride is starting to think you may be planning to leave her standing at the altar. So unless you want me to come up there with a
shotgun, you get into them fancy duds and report to the lobby on the double!" I needed to hold the phone far from my ear.

He hanged up and i wondered, fleetingly, if getting married is usually this easy. Why, its like... putting on a suit of clothes.
With a sense partly of self-amazement, as though i were a matador, getting dressed for the first tie in his suit-of-lights, i put on the white tuxedo. The frilly
suit, the white bow tie, the pants, then everything else. I was just about out of the room, when i checked in my pocket to see if i remembered to take the room
key. I had it. I returned to the room to pick up anything else, i thought good to have with me. However i decided to leave most of the hotel's possessions in the
room. Apparently i possessed a sense of morality. I left the room and closed the door behind me. Then i headed down the corridor. One of the elevators arrived,
at 15 the moment i pressed the down button. I got in and rode to the lobby.

I stepped out of the elevator into the lobby, of Sunderland Hotel, and the first thing i saw, was myself looking elegantly sheepish in my white tuxedo, for the
doors of the facing elevator were made of mirror-glass. A TV sat next to the reception area, and it was playing to a man wearing a cowboy hat, slumped in a high
wing-back leather chair. He noticed me and gestured me to come to him. I never saw him before of course. He was tall thin man with an expression of 'good humor',
so forced that his smile seemed to be achieved the way some facelifts are, with little fishhooks pulling the flesh into place. His black suit hanged loosely on
his spare frame, and the few strands of hair that have escaped the band of his black hat, were the color of dirty khaki. His eyes were small and he had a tendency
to squint. The buckle of his belt spelled out his name in big brass capitals - LUKE.

"Johnny my boy!" Boomed the man in the Stetson, in a voice as abrasive as desert sand.

"Your dear old mother - God rest her soul - would be so proud to see you now!" He advanced toward me, grinning like a friendly skull, with his long, thin arms
extended to embrace me, and before i could back away or offer any other protest the embrace was complete.

Not what you'd call warm, just a short symbolic collision between my torso and his, with him maintaining the same cadaverous grin all the time.

"Well, my boy," He asked releasing me, "are you feeling better after your big toot?"

"Not much, it drained some energy, what about you?" I answered, like a interaction in his monologue.

"I'm feeling just fine, but that's no matter now."

"Johnny boy, this is no time for any funny business. I gotta go down to this here rats' cellar and fetch back that preacher. Meanwhile you'd better go up to
the chapel on the next floor and smooth things over with the little lady." He continued, no chance to stop him.

"I think she was starting to worry that you was going to leave her standing at the altar a second time, but i told her, 'Honey', i said, just joking like, 'if
that Cameron boy walks out on you this time with another dumb excuse like the last one, he's going to have to answer to your daddy.'"

"And then, Johnny, I showed her what I was packing..." The man held open jacket of his suit to reveal a shoulder holster from which, butt of a small gun projected.

"...and that seemed to ease her worrying a whole lot. Nuff said, my boy. Do you take my meaning?"

I shook my head, and go on wondering how anyone who'd ever met this man, as i must have in the life i couldn't remember, could ever forget him, for he was
memorably ugly.

"Glad to hear it. Cause I wouldn't want to gave to do anything to make my little cactus blossom unhappy. You've given that poor gal enough trouble to last her
a lifetime, and from here on out, Mr. Know-It-All Cameron the Third, you're going to do right by my little Alice, or my name ain't Luke Dudley."

"Now scoot up those stairs and give her some of that sweet talk that got the two of you into this situation."

I looked around me for some way out of this mess, the mess called marriage.
Luke patted his concealed pistol.

"I said 'Scoot', boy, and when I say 'Scoot' I'm not talking about by-and-by. I'm saying 'Scoot now.' Get up to that chapel."

I stood before a large rosewood door, bearing a mottled brass nameplate, declaring that to be the All-faith chapel. I entered the chapel, which was dim and fragrant
with the mingled scents of flowers and candlewax. It seemed to be deserted. I looked around, the chapel was about twenty feet square, windowless, with a high
coffered ceiling and a terra cotta floor. In the center of the room was a large round slab of marble, too low to dine at, but too high to be a coffee table.
Grouped about it on three sides, were pews of blond wood. Behind it was a lectern, flanked by a vase of wilting gladiolae on a free-standing marble column and
a large candelabra, its candles burned down to the sockets. The general effect of that was, a funeral parlor without a corpse. High up on three of the walls,
forming a kind of frieze, was the All-Faith Chapels chief claimed to distinction, a much darkened mural representing all the faiths of mankind worshiping the
Supreme Being, painted (i knew from the plate before me) in 1938 by Maxfield Parrish. Christ, Moses, Mohamed, Buddha, Confucius, Martin Luther, and Mary Baker Eddy
were representing sitting down at, or standing about a table and waving their arms. I looked around for that woman then, but she wasn't there.

Just as i were about to leave the empty chapel, the door opened behind me, and a woman's voice exclaimed.

"John! Oh my darling, you're here!"

I turned around to confront the figure of a woman in bridal gown. She was wearing a floor-length gown of creamed white satin,
trimmed with lace and taffeta. A veil of yellowed lace obscured her face. She had thin, well-proportioned figure, or a good dressmaker. Really, there was more
of the wedding gown and veil in evidence, than of the woman.

"Isn't it wonderful?" She said.

"I've always wanted to be married in full bridal regalia, and even if there isn't a great crowd to see us, its so much more solemn like this." Alice, (i think that
was her name) continued, then her behavior changed.

"Take me in your arms! Kiss me! Make me yours!"

I grasped the lower edge of the veil with a gentle firmness and raised it slowly, to reveal a pale, pretty and slightly frightened face. Her eyes fixed on mine,
imploringly, but she bitted her lower lip, as though to keep from asking out loud the question that was in her eyes. But her eyes needed no interpreters. Do you
love me? They asked. Her lips met mine eagerly, and the satin of her gown, crushed to the polyester of my tux. The invitation was irresistible. The kiss intensified
from perhaps to entirely. A kiss like that, left no room to doubt one thing, that woman wanted me.

After some moments of amorous silence, Alice, in a strong yet quavery voice, asked.

"John, will you marry me now?"

I backed away, in that sweet thing i forgot, as well as my entire life, that she wanted to get married.

"John!" The woman in the bridal dress shrieked, "please don't abandon me like this. I'll die of shame if you leave me again. Surely, whatever reason you may have for
changing your mind, its something we can talk about. Its Daddy isn't it? He's such a bully, I know. But once you get to know him he's really a sweet person, and in
any case, John, once were on Ganymede, he won't be able to bother us anymore."

"I..." I tried to say something.

She threw herself on her knees before me and lifted up her arms (same gesture in which i saw Mary Baker Eddy earlier) imploringly.

"Please, John. Please say you'll marry me. Is it yes or no?"

"No." My mouth somehow slapped her into the face.

Considering her almost hysterical manner until now, she accepted my refusal with surprising dignity.

"Very well then, I won't argue."

She turned to leave and then turned round again to hand me a small blue box bearing the words 'Tiffany Co.'.

"I almost forgot to give you this. I brought it with your money, so it belongs to you, until you decide that you want to put it on my finger. Will you please take
the box, John?"

I accepted the box from her, and then in a flash of white satin and yellow lace, she was out the door of chapel. I took a step forward to pursue her and fell to the
terra cotta floor, tripped by a kneeling pad. As i pushed myself up from the dark tiles, a familiar vertigo overcame me. My body seemed much heavier, a weight for
my arms raised and i slumped back to the floor, watching the great octagons of terra cotta bended and warped, waved and grew black. My last conscious thought
was that i may be the first bridegroom ever, to have fainted when left standing at the altar. A dim faraway voice seemed to tell me to do something. But it was so far
away and i was so comfortable, there was a sunset above me, all with stripes of gold and indigo. White angel floated above me calling out my name. The same voice
called to me. It was nearer now, an annoying buzz. I blinked my eyes and shifted my head, and saw a magenta dawn silhouetting the poplars.
The angel was gone. I woke up with a strange stinging sensation on the side of my head, a pain that seemed geometrically precise. I realized that i was lying on the
terra cotta tiles for some time staring in a daze at the two wings of the mural frieze by Maxfield Parrish. There were flecks of blood on the tiles where i laid.

"Fuck..." Not very suiting in the chapel.

The very instant word left my lips, i felt a strangling sensation and then a strange dizziness. A voice from my lost childhood rang in my ears.

"You must never, NEVER use language like that here!" I fell on my knees once again, unconscious. The double faint.

I was dreaming.
I was dreaming that i have been asleep and that i woke up to find myself in a strange hotel. The only light in the room came from the hotel's gigantic neon light,
that glowed a baleful red outside the window.

"Spike, Spike are you there?" Voice whispered in the crimson twilight.

I knew that i was, that 'Spike' and that i had to answer the voice truthfully, but my mouth was dry, tongue paralyzed with fear.

"Come here, Spike." Voice insisted.

"Come here to me, in the mirror."

Obedient to the voice, i went to the mirror. The figure in the mirror leaned forward to peer at me intently. He was dressed all in white, like a bridegroom or a ghost.
He had no face, only eyes with different colors, what stared anxiously from the smooth ovoid of his head, he smiled, recognizing me.

"Excellent." He whispered.

As i entered the mirror, the beckoning figure vanished. I followed him out of the room and caught another glimpse of him, at the far end of the corridor. I ran toward
him and reached his side, just as the subway train pulled into the station. The door opened, and i woke up, with a shudder. I brushed my arms and left the chapel, with
my hands in pockets. I came into the lobby. Across from the elevators was the registration desk, then the exit onto some street. To one side of the desk was a
newsstand, then a large curving staircase going up to the second floor. Beside the staircase a hand-lettered sign said.

The Sunderland Hotel
is happy to welcome the new visitors
to the Tharis city.

Beyond the staircase, was an entrance to the Rathskeller Bar and Grill. In the far corner of the reception area, a lonely TV mutely displayed evening news. Near the TV
area was large couch and table, which served as a lounge. I chose the invitation to relax, offered by a large womblike sofa, to ease off pain in my head. I watched a
news program, what was in progress, but i couldn't be say to listen to it, for a caucus of dissident members of the 'new visitors' was carrying on a rather noisy
argument over its platform, and the sound on the TV was turned quite low. I saw a smiling reporter with a microphone standing outside a large stone building.
Momentarily, my attention diverted by the shouts of the contending factions of the caucus of the 'new visitors'. When i looked back at the TV, i thought i saw my
own face on the screen. I looked dirty and very unhappy. Small wonder, for that fleeting framed portrait, at the top of the screen, by the word wanted, and at the
bottom of the screen by numerals. I strained to hear the announcers voice and caught only the end of report.

"... killed during his escape from the Earth penitentiary located in Texas, where the prisoner was serving a two years sentence for the possession of an illegal
substance. He is believed to be armed and should be considered dangerous." Weather report followed this caution. Tomorrow will be another sunny day.

I took the newspaper. The Post's headline was: Taxi strikers battle police. I skimmed through the news and ads in the paper, looking for some hint of who i was,
some special knowledge, some keenness of interest or hunger that would be a clue to the life i forgot. I turned to page 17 and saw a blurry picture of my scowling
face. The caption under the photo read:

Search for escaped convict
continues,

Authorities in the Earth area continue to look for Spike Spiegel, wanted in connection with the slaying of a guard while Spiegel escaped two months ago from a Earth's
prison. Spiegel, sentenced to be armed and is considered dangerous.

I noticed the bellboy who brought my room receipt, in the far corner of the lobby. He motioned for me to walk over to him. Curious about what he
wanted, i accepted his invitation. As i approached, the bellboy raised his hand as though in greeting. Considering i stiffed him of his tip, it seemed very friendly
of him, and i lifted my hand to wave back. As i did so, i realized the bellboy wasn't greeting me, but chided me for not giving him a tip earlier.

"If you'd tipped me, I would have pretended like I forgot your face, and I never would have made any connection to your picture in the newspaper."

"Maybe next time you're in a situation like this, you'll remember to tip, huh?" Bellboy regarded me with a happy sneer.

"You little..." I was about to shout but he interrupted.

"You should be more careful, Mr. Spiegel. I mean, you are being kind of conspicuous for a man on the lam from a murder rap. The police have already been around once
showing your picture. You're lucky nobody but me recognized you. But I wouldn't push my luck staying on in... wasn't it room 1502?"

I was too startled to reply and he continued.

"There was nothing about a bounty for turning you in, so I didn't say anything then. I figured I'd wait around and talk to you first. I couldn't help but notice that
Tiffany box. Will you let me have it so I'll forget I ever saw you?"

"Take it." I handed him the box, Alice gave me.

"And remember one thing, stay the hell out of my way."

He took the box and continued.

"Thanks Mr. Spiegel, or i guess i should say Mr. Cameron, thanks a whole lot. I served time in the slammer myself, so i wish you the best of luck. As a friend I would also
suggest that you not go back to your room. They're watching it."

He disappeared through a door behind the reception desk. I exited the Sunderland with the feeling a POW
must had when he cut through the last strands of barbed wire, separating him from freedom. It felt great to be a single faceless, nameless atom among the million others
churning about, in the grind of Tharis streets. It felt safe. There was already nighttime, but the sidewalks still teemed with people, and the streets were heavily
trafficked and bright with the sum-total wattage of so many streetlights, headlights and lighted sings. In the windows of the darkened shop fronts, i saw myself, mirrored
and felt an utterly inappropriate glow of vanity. The white tux made me look like a refugee from the chorus line of a musical comedy and in peculiar way it served as
camouflage. People stared, but they were staring at the tuxedo, not me.

I became frustrated of myself as a homeless, as i saw blind man begging for money on the corner of street.

"Well..." I smiled and entered my pockets with hands.

"Whatever happens, happens."